goats

Oklahoma Senator James Lankford earlier this week published a long report called “Federal Fumbles” detailing projects that he considers government waste. Corny football analogies aside, some of the projects described in the report do indeed seem excessive at first glance.

Unfortunately, the senator criticized a number of research grants without even bothering to contact the primary investigators involved in the studies. Let’s take a $2.6 million, 4-year study that tracks efforts to stem trucker obesity (page 17) run by Dr. Ryan Olson at Oregon Health & Sciences University. Read more >

Last week, I pushed back on Senator Tom Coburn’s attacks on federally-funded science grants, explaining that if his staff had taken the opportunity to speak with the researchers in question that he might have a better understanding of the importance of the research he was making fun of. The researchers were eager to talk to me, and I quoted a couple of them in a blog post. In the time since, others have spoken out to explain how the senator’s “Wastebook” was off the mark. Read more >